Day 6

The pyramids at Giza!! We hopped in a cab around 10am for the hour drive to Giza. When you picture the pyramidsyou imagine them being out in the middle of the desert surrounded by sand, right? Yeah, that's just not at all the way it is. They are actually at the far end of Cairo surrounded on 3 sides by metropolis. This does not make it any less awesome though. I was in history freak heaven! Definitely nerd-tastic. There are 7 (or 9, depending on who you ask) pyramids @ Gaza - 3 big ones and the rest small ruins. We got there, hopped on camels and were off! Here are some pre-camel pictures:

For the ride out they make you ride with them to "get used to" the feel of the camel which is very strange and slightly awkward. The camel sits down on all 4 legs, you hop on, then they raise their hind legs and then the front ones. Not too steadyfeeling at all. We rode out past the pyramids where we stopped for super touristy pictures and Cokes. It was definitely hot but not nearly as bad as I'd imagined. The camels are really bumpy and pretty hilarious as well. When we stopped the camels rest and mine kept rolling around in the sand like a dog outside in the dirt. It was pretty funny. Hereare some of the better pics from this stop:

It was then on to the Sphinx, or "sphinkus" as our "guides" called it. Who knows. We got to ride the camles by ourselves at this point with the guides walking in front leading them. Much better.

Once we got to the sphinx (about a half hour) the camels left us and we were on our own to walk around.I bought a pretty cool Cleopatra statue outside of the Sphinx and talked with the guy for a minute. He gave me a free scarab which Egyptians believe brings good luck. I also got some postcards which I will hopefully remember to mail. Muahahaha. The Sphinx was pretty surreal, I definitely got goose bumps.

After the walk back to the road (about 10 min) I definitely started to feel the heat. I had already downed 3 liters of water and all I wanted was more. So we sat in the shade for awhile before heading into Giza for lunch. Once we got home (which took FOREVER because there was some issue with the bridge over the Nileand it was down to 1 lane which is catastrophic in a city that doesn't even use lanes) it was definitely nap/shower time. I was caked in dust and insanely tired. Later that evening we went to dinner at another cafe in Zamalek and smoked some hookah. Then Dina's coiusin came to pick us up and we headed to the Cairo Jazz Club downtown. There was a pretty decent band playing all American covers - DMB, Michael Jackson, Jamiroquoi (sp), etc. It was a lot of fun. At one point a famous Egpytian actor whose name escapes me came in. He is as close to openly gay as you can be in Egypt and so he is a bit controversial. It was pretty cool!